The sheer randomness is so much so that currently there is a chat battle between participants typing the word “anarchy” and participants typing the word “democracy” to control the game. Twitch saw that and placed a bar depicting the battle in the video stream. Basically, there are now two modes to Twitch Plays Pokemon, anarchy and democracy. Anarchy is the mode we’re all familiar with — all inputs in the chat are taken and immediately applied. Democracy on the other hand uses a “vote” system — the system takes the most popular input every few seconds and only applies that one. Players can vote to switch between modes at any moment. If Democracy mode gets voted in, Red’s movement is then collectively determined by the players.

“The mode that isn’t active needs 75% of votes as indicated by the dotted line, the current percentage of votes is indicated by the black line,” the FAQ on the stream’s chat states.

The channel’s creator said that TwitchPlaysPokemon will run indefinitely in the hopes that the crowd-sourced game will see it’s Elite Four defeated. There’s a huge lag between a chat message and the resultant input, so even if all 75,000 players are agreed on what needs to be done, a combination of lag and duplication may not help players achieve that goal anytime soon.

The stream has accrued 13 million views and the participant numbers rise drastically at peak hours, even reaching 80,000 simultaneous players at one point. In an article about TwitchPlaysPokemon Kotaku outlines how it’s possible that any progress is being made in the game with so many participants and technical difficulties, it’s worth a read if you are curious.

HBO has announced the premiere date of the 4th season of Game of Thrones. The medieval-style hit show is to return to screens on the 6th of April at 9PM eastern time(3AM in Nigeria. The Season 3 finale saw 6.3 million viewers and made Game of Thrones the most pirated TV show of 2013.

When we last saw Game of Thrones, a large part of House Stark had been wiped out after Robb’s wedding. Leaving Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon orphans. The Lannisters are still in charge while Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre decide not to kill Davos.

Outside the seven kingdoms, Daenerys is still the mother of dragons and now 10,000 unsullied. Jon Snow returns to the wall after knowing a lot of nothings.

Game of Thrones is based on the books from A Song of Ice and Fire – a trilogy by George R. Martin.

Source: Variety, IMDB

YouTube Nigeria has released a list of the most watched videos in the country.

A look at Nigerian favorite music videos in 2013, reveals that songs like Ada Ada by Flavour, Caro by Starboy feat L.A.X & Wizkid, Personally by P-Square, Jaiye Jaiye by Wizkid ft Femi Kuti and Eminado by Tiwa Savage ft Don jazzy were some of the most watched music videos in NIgeria in 2013.

Comedy videos continue to top the charts with videos like The Interview by NdaniTV and Lagos Big Girl’s Game by VideoHitsShow’s featuring as two of the most watched videos in 2013.

Globally, the world watched the The Fox more than 265 million times, making it the top trending video of 2013. Viewers also made it a top searched Halloween costume. The global public turned out in record-setting numbers to see Psy’s post-Gangnam Style performance on his latest video – Gentleman. And YouTube users made more “Harlem Shake” videos than there are people in Manhattan.

Here are the Top 10 Videos For Nigeria In 2013(excluding music).

1. Last Flight To Abuja – The full movie (Nollywood Movies 2013)
2. Civil Defence Commandant Can’t Tell His Organisation’s Web Address
3. EDIDI-(The Bond) – Latest Yoruba Movie 2013 Starring Iyabo Ojo
4. Stella Damasus and Senator Yerima on Al-Jazeera Network THE STREAM
5. The Leaked Video Of Gen. Diya Oladipo Pleading With Gen. Sanni Abacha – Oputa Panel
6. THE LAGOS BIG GIRL’S GAME ( Reanne Opia)
7. Bling!
8. How to get married; “Naija” style by Toke Makinwa
9. The Interview – A tale of Frank Donga
10. Nigeria – Burkina Faso | CAN Orange 2013 | 21.01.2013

The Top 10 YouTube Channels show that Nigerians are finally beginning to stream movies. 5 out of the channels are nollywood channels. The top channels are:

1. AYTVAYTV
2. channelsweb
3. yorubamagic
4. mynaijalove
5. TVnolly
6. nollywod5star
7. ndaniTV
8. DavidoHKNTV
9. Nollywood5ive
10. Officialiyanya

The Top 10 Music Videos Watched By Nigerians

1. Ada Ada [Official Video] by Flavour
2. PULL OVER (OFFICIAL VIDEO) by KCEE Ft. Wizkid
3. Personally by P-Square
4. CARO – (Official Video) by Starboy Ft. L.A.X & Wizkid
5. Jaiye Jaiye (Official Video) by WizKid Ft. Femi Kuti
6. Sexy Mama [Official Video] by Iyanya Ft. Wizkid
7. Eminado [Official Video] by Tiwa Savage Ft. Don Jazzy
8. Stupid love by Olamide
9. Skelewu (Official Video) by Davido
10. Emi ni baller (Official Video) by Chidinma Ft. Tha Suspect & IllBliss

What’s your favorite YouTube video this year? Tell us in the comments!

Oxford Dictionaries decided to add twerk, selfie and digital detox to their dictionary. Mind you, both twerking and selfie aren’t even recognized by a smartphone’s autocorrect, that’s how bad this is.

If you don’t know, twerking, in the simplest terms, means to your backside viciously. Selfies are self portraits taken with your camera, and digital detox is pretty much a detox from social media and other related internet addictions.

“The rapid-fire gyrations employed by U.S. pop starlet Miley Cyrus to bounce her way to the top of the charts had become increasingly visible in the past 12 months and would be added to its publications under the entry: “Twerk, verb.”"  - Associated Press

Apparently Miley Cyrus “employed” the word. Can we please have a moment of silence for our generation?

Check out other internet inspired dictionary entries here and here.

Source: Mercury News

“We feel letting a lot more people test and give us feedback will help us produce a much better final product,”   Project Lead Idamiebi says on the games blog.

Titi Tilapia is about a purple fish who discovers that her eggs are missing, the eggs are taken by an octopus called Evil Okoro who is the main antagonist of the story. You’ll help gathering eggs underwater (With the help of her friends like Tonye the Tortoise and Elder Emeka) in order to save them from Okoro the Octopus who intends to control the entire ocean.

The game features simple controls.

Screenshots below. A review of the open beta build will be available soon.

Sunken “Danfo” buses provide an interesting backdrop for collecting eggs

My video app is better than yours. In the ever growing battle for user time(and bandwith), Vine, Vimeo, Instagram, YouTube and Keek have even more competition. MixBit – launched by YouTube Co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen is the new kid around the corner.

MixBit is an iPhone app that lets users record, edit, share and mix videos from other users into a video of your own. It was created by Hurley and Chen’s company – Avos Systems.

To record a video in MixBit, all you have to do is tap and hold the screen until your video finishes recording.  In the continuing trend of Internet limits, the app lets you record only 16 seconds of video. You can also include only 256 clips in a video mix.

MixBit Screenshots

Thankfully, the app has no filters but allows you rearrange clips and save drafts. Currently, you can’t upload pre-recorded videos but the founders say the feature will be added soon.

Here’s my favourite part about MixBit – no numbers. Users have no idea how many times a video has been viewed or shared. There are also no profiles or followers. Chad Hurley says he’s turned off by self promotion on the Internet. You can however, watch any video you like within the app and share as you wish.

All videos uploaded to MixBit are in the public domain and any user can use any of the clips uploaded.

Download MixBit From The Apple App Store. An Android version is in the works.

Source: Mashable

The Gidilounge app is free on the Apple App Store, it is not a large application, so it downloads fairly quickly and installs on the iPhone. When you launch the application, you are presented with a login page in which you can login with your existing credentials or login using Facebook – however, the Facebook option does not seem to be functional at the moment. The option to sign up as a new user is also available. A drawback of the login page is that when entering your password, it is displayed in plain text which does not seem very safe, but I assume this was done with ease for the user in mind.

After logging in to the app, a page titled ‘Global’ is displayed with three categories, ‘Trending’, ‘Weekly Top 10′ and ‘Indie’. You can select any of these categories and listen to songs from them. Once you tap on a song, you get the options to ‘Play’, ‘Star’, ‘Add to Playlist’, ‘Share on Facebook’ and ‘Share on Twitter’ which are all denoted by icons.

There is also a left navigation bar that allows you switch between different Gplayer settings or switch to the Radio feature, and a Social option to select from. In the left navigation bar, you can also search for songs, playlists or users using the Search feature. The app also has a notification that comes up every few days when there is a new song release

My overall experience with the app was not so good. I feel like there are a lot of issues that need to be ironed out. Some examples being the aforementioned Facebook login issue, when listening to tracks in the Gplayer, they cannot be fast forwarded or rewound, the ‘Settings’ icon in the left side navigation bar does not work and a few other minor issues. Other than that, it does a good job at playing music and helping you discover new Nigerian music

In conclusion, I believe this app would most likely be a great addition for already existing Gidilounge users. However, I think that because of the drawbacks the app currently has, it would not excel too well at swaying new users its way.

The service launched in Nigeria first and will soon come to other West African countries before expanding to the rest of Africa. For now they only have a few shows available including Tinsel, Jacob’s Cross, Doctors Quarters and Lekki Wives, and from the login page mock-up, I spied Super Story in the screenshot. Now that would be the day.

Launched a few weeks ago, NextSpeel’s simple and seamless design make watching shows a breeze. It’s ironic that its show page’s design looks overly similar to Hulu’s. One thing I don’t like is you have to create an account to watch the shows, and if you’re anything like me, that is a pain.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Mobile Monday Nigeria is holding its first hackathon today in collaboration with VConnect and the Lagos State Government Ministry of Science and Technology.

The goal is to create Entertainment Now, a mobile web app (in ASP.NET and PHP with the Microsoft SQL database) that allows users to find movies showing in local cinemas. The app should let users find movies and the cinemas nearby showing them with showtimes. It should use social media APIs to let users rate and recommend the movies. Developers can also use any other social and location based APIs that can improve engagement and usability.

VConnect will provide data services, but developers are free to change it or use their own database structures. They’ll also provide free versions of the Google Maps and Maps API. You can pull movie reviews, ratings and trailers with APIs of sites like IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and YouTube.

Each team of developers should consist of four people. You can come with your team or team up with other people at the venue.

The winning team get a 30 day contract valued at $2,000 with VConnect. Second and third place winners get similar $1,000 and $500 contracts respectively.

If you go, let us know how it goes in the comments or tweet us @Technesstivity.

To register and check more event details, click here

Happy Monday!

Earlier this month after E3, Microsoft revealed details about its game lending policy and 24-hour offline limit on the Xbox One. This caused a stir among long-time Xbox fans and the feedback began flooding in through out the E3 week. Microsoft has changed its policies regarding Xbox One’s internet requirements, used game restrictions and more for customer satisfaction.

 Firstly, Xbox One will not need an internet connection to play offline games or need to check in every 24 hours; instead, internet will only be required when initially setting up the console. When setting up the console, users will download the Day One update after which all changes in the policy will be applied. “There was always going to be a day one update on the console, and that’s frankly just a difference in manufacturing schedules versus software schedules, we just wanted to be clear that that hasn’t changed, that you have to go online to get the software update for day one, then you wouldn’t have to be connected after that.” Marc Whitten told to IGN in an exclusive statement. Marc Whitten is the Xbox One chief product officer.

Next, to play games, similar to the current Xbox 360, the game-disc must be in the tray. The game will be installed to the console before playing but will require the game disc to be present before it starts.

There are no longer restrictions on used games. Games can be exchanged just like they can be right now on the Xbox 360. There will be no additional restrictions for trade-ins or lending games to friends. The system is also no longer be region locked and all downloaded games will function the same way whether your console is connected or not.

Xbox One games will be available for download from the online store and retail stores from day one as planned. Microsoft’s decision comes as a result of feedback as Microsoft’s Don Mattrick wrote ”Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback, I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.” The full update can be found here.

Despite it’s $100 extra bulk over Sony’s $399 Playstation 4, will these policy changes affect your decisions of which next-gen console to buy? Leave your comments below.